11Sep

From vaccine safety to climate change to GMO foods, scientific "controversies" are becoming more and more prevalent in modern society. Our guest this week, Kolina Koltai, studies how people decide which side they stand on when it comes to these issues, and the factors that can either change or reinforce their positions. In particular, she uses the anti-vaccine movement as a case study in exploring what we know about how people make decisions about these public topics. The explanation that people are "idiots" or "misinformed" is not an effective way of understanding why parents choose to not vaccinate their children, so she's developing and exploring new theories to answer explain the phenomenon of this movement and its continued rise.